


Research binge

by VirtualCarrot (Kaoro)



Series: Teen Wolf tumblr ficlets [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Family Dynamics, Gen, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22885027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoro/pseuds/VirtualCarrot
Summary: When John shuffles to the bathroom to relieve himself at two in the morning and finds the light on in his son’s room, he sighs, raps half-heartedly at the door and tells his son to go to sleep soon.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Teen Wolf tumblr ficlets [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643803
Comments: 8
Kudos: 281





	Research binge

Stiles had been a curious and inquiring baby, crawling to the most unexpected places to touch and taste and drool all over just about everything, then a curious and inquiring toddler. His first word, a longtime-coming occurrence that had them in fits of worry when he showed no signs of proper speech, was “why”. He took to it with gusto and quickly conditioned a response of sheer dread among his relatives whenever he uttered the word. 

Still, he didn’t have the vocabulary to ask fully-formed questions at first, and the inability to communicate properly often gave way to tears and screams of frustration. There were flying objects, tantrums, and they never could quite get rid of the stain of chicken zucchini puree from the left wall of the living room.

Then Stiles started learning words. Oh boy.

The seemingly innate curiosity took an even more proactive turn after the first day of kindergarten. Stiles had a bruised chin, scraped knees and the characteristic scrunched face of a child on the verge of tears. He wanted to know the meaning of his name. No amount of praise of his maternal grandfather seemed to soothe him. Yes, but the _meaning_! John was at a loss, his wife not any better. They didn’t have an answer.

And so started the first of many, many trips to the library.

In the end, they didn’t get a satisfactory answer and Stiles took to introducing himself as Stilinski. Over the months, it was shortened to less of a mouthful.

The itch to learn never left.

So when John shuffles to the bathroom to relieve himself at two in the morning and finds the light on in his son’s room, he sighs, raps half-heartedly at the door and tells his son to go to sleep soon.

And that’s it.

*

Around six in the morning a phone call from the station informs the sheriff that yet another body has been found in the industrial district. John doesn’t see his son at breakfast that day.

*

The box of Ibuprofen is missing from the small pile of basic medication they keep on a counter in the kitchen. John stares at the empty spot with a frown as he absently sips from his coffee mug and brainstorms on the latest case of gruesome yet ridiculously inexplicable deaths of Beacon Hills.

Eventually he cranes his head out of the kitchen door: “Stiles!”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want me to pick up some Redoxon from the pharmacy tomorrow?”

There’s a pause, then the sound of Stiles’ door being pushed open. “What?”

His voice sounds distinctly croaky. John gestures with the hand holding his half-empty mug even though Stiles can’t see him. “For your cold.”

“My — ? Oh. Oh yes, sure. My cold. Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks.”

Stiles closes the door and kicks it open barely a few seconds later.

“Don’t get the drops, I want effervescent tablets.”

“I know Stiles, I’ve only been your father for seventeen years.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, mister.”

“I’ll get chewable ones, watch me.”

*

Two days later the Tylenol disappears.

“Stiles!” John finishes pouring his coffee with a deep sigh and wearily climbs up the stairs. He knocks on the door, hears a yelp in reply. “I’m coming in, you’d better be decent.”

Stiles — Stiles looks awful. It’s eleven in the evening of yet another school night, he looks like he’s about to keel over, and he’s still hunched over his computer.

John leans against the door frame and crosses his arms. “You should rest, son.”

Stiles laughs weakly — more of a wheeze than anything else. He is so hoarse it hurts to hear. “Sleep’s for the weak,” he says.

“Your cold isn’t going to just go away miraculously.”

“Right,” Stiles drawls. “My _cold_.”

John gives him his most unimpressed look. Stiles reaches out to pat his laptop, misses on the first try before he finally manages to touch the warm plastic. “Come on Dad, I need — ”

“You need sleep.”

“But I have to — ”

“Don’t make me seize the computer.”

“Fine.”

*

John pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I’m the sheriff, didn’t you think I’d notice you turning off the light at the last moment?” he calls through the closed door.

There’s no answer. Denial, denial, denial.

John rubs his face, staggers sleepily to get a glass of water in the kitchen, and drags himself back to bed. He pointedly does not think about how he has to get to work in only a few hours.

*

Stiles is late. They started the school year with a long, tearful conversation about trust and honesty and respecting the curfew this year, and Stiles has made a point of being home before ten PM on school days. So far. There have been a slew of murders around town lately and _his son is not home_. John is this close to abusing his authority as a sheriff and having the whole station on the lookout.

His thumb is hovering over the green call button of his cellphone when he picks up the telltale rumble of the jeep in the driveway. He dashes out of the house just as it comes to a stop.

Derek Hale looks at him like a deer in the headlights from behind the wheel.

“What the hell is going on here?” John snaps. “Where’s my son?”

Hale has the audacity of making a shushing motion at him, but not before a groan of discomfort goes up from the passenger side. John throws Hale a glare before he strides to the other side of the jeep where his son is slumped.

“Did he do something to you?” he asks heatedly, helping Stiles out of the car.

“Shh, not so loud,” Stiles whispers, shaking his head a little too fast. He stops abruptly with a wince, sags against him and whimpers all the way to the house. Hale attempts to melt into the shadows when they walk past him but John’s warning look makes him freeze in his tracks.

“Oh no, you’re coming too. Lock the car and follow us in.”

*

Stiles squints at the lights the moment they step inside and sinks into the couch. He tries to hide his face in the arm of the couch only to jerk away as if burned by the feeling of the fabric on his skin. Hale turns the lights off and closes the front door gingerly behind him, the click of the latch barely audible over Stiles’ heavy breathing.

It's not so dark that John can't see where he's going but enough that he can't see far, so he gropes for the kitchen’s light switch. He refuses to give Hale a chance to use the darkness to run away.

When he clears his throat a tad too loud before speaking, Stiles’ breathing hitches (and Hale winces in sympathy) so he makes sure to whisper from then on. “So?”

Hale shifts from one foot to another. “He has a migraine.”

“’S’ just a headache,” Stiles slurs from the couch.

Hale rolls his eyes before scowling in his general direction. “Do you want me to turn the lights back up?” he says purposefully loud, enough that Stiles groans pitifully at the noise. John is unimpressed and Hale has enough sense to duck his head when he notices.

“Since when do you have migraines?” John asks. Stiles shakes his head minutely and mumbles a denial. “You never had a cold, did you?” Another shake. “Damn it Stiles! You can’t just take medicine like that!”

Hale rubs the back of his neck. “It’s the exhaustion. Scott said he hasn’t been getting much sleep lately. He was trying to drive home but I had him wait it out. When it didn’t calm down I drove him.”

“I had research to do, I didn’t have time to — ”

John pads back to the kitchen while his son argues back incoherently at Hale who tries and fails to glower him into silent submission. John has questions. So many questions.

But for now Stiles is laid on the couch, his breath shaky from the pain, a thin layer of sweat glistening at his temples. His face is turned away from the slight glow coming from the kitchen and his hands fist into his shirt in spasms. He looks pale, a little green around the edges, and John is already steeling himself for the moment he realizes he’s feeling nauseated under all that pain and has to be rushed to the bathroom.

John puts some ice in a bowl, pours cold water over it and grabs the clean-ish dish towel he took out the day before. He finds Hale sitting on the couch at Stiles’ feet, a hand wrapped around his ankle. There are dark lines on his wrist, as if a kid has taken to doodling roots with a black ballpen all over it. Funny John didn’t notice before.

Also, Hale is touching his son casually.

John sighs, briefly looks up at the ceiling to gather his strength, and squats beside the couch. He wrings the towel, dabs it over Stiles’ forehead and tries not to feel smug at the sigh of contentment.

“I used to have the worst migraines in college,” he says at Stiles’ inquiring hum. “If you think the Beacon library leaves a lot to be desired, you clearly haven’t seen what I was working with. I spent hours reading the wrong books because they weren’t labeled properly. Still, I just would not sleep until I had found whatever I was looking for.”

He drops the towel in the bowl, folds it lengthwise and lays it over Stiles’ closed eyes. Because he’s a good father, he also ignores the way Hale tenses so much at the resulting moan of satisfaction that he all but jumps away from the couch. Instead he pats his son’s shoulder and stands up. Stiles raises a hand to the towel and nudges it just far enough to glance up. John gives him a slow, sharp smile when their eyes meet and takes great pleasure in his son’s look of dawning horror.

“Which reminds me,” John carries on. “I’m going to have questions as soon as you can put two words together, and I will get my answers.”

Stiles groans and slumps back into the cushions.

“I’m going to be sick.”

“That’s fine, Hale can carry you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I get terrible headaches, I felt like sharing with Stiles


End file.
